Page 267 of Of Empires and Dust

“Faster,” Dann shouted. As though the horse had been holding back, Drunir lunged forwards, his stride opening, his hooves tearing the ground apart.

The village on the other side of the hill was in flames. Men and women fought Uraks with whatever they had been able to find: pitchforks, axes, knives, staffs. A handful were armoured in leather and gambeson, but most wore nothing but tunics and trousers. The Uraks ripped them apart.

As Drunir galloped down the hill, two of those monstrous Bloodmarked came into view amidst the flames, their dark claws tearing through flesh and bone.

Dann drew a sharp breath and brought his bow to bear. He slipped an arrow from the quiver he’d strapped to Drunir’s saddle, took a half-second to pick a target, and loosed.

The arrow punched into the side of an Urak’s head in the middle of the creature’s downswing. The beast stumbled sideways, then dropped.

Drunir responded to every shift in Dann’s weight, moving as though his body were an extension of Dann’s own. They swerved to the right, bounding over two bodies in the dirt.

Dann nocked, drew, and loosed twice in quick succession. Two more beasts fell, and the five men who had been fighting them turned to look at Dann, their expressions painted in surprise and shock.

He looked ahead to see the thick of the fighting lay in the village’s centre. Drunir wouldn’t be able to manoeuvre in there. He swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted, grabbing Drunir by the reins. “Go.”

The horse nickered, flapping its muzzle at him.

“Those things will tear you apart if you can’t move around them. Go.” Dann slapped the horse in the flank, then turned and loosed another arrow into an Urak’s heart, but the beast continued to charge, two more joining it.

Dann turned to the group of men who now stood at his side. “Go for the heart or the head. If you can’t, cut their legs from under them. Bring them down, then kill them on the ground.”

“Who are you?” An older man with grey-black hair and thin wiry arms stared at Dann’s armour, his gaze fixing on the emblem of the white dragon on his breast.

“A man with a bow.” Dann broke into a run, the men following after. It was at that point he realised he’d left his quiver strapped to Drunir’s saddle and decided that was something he would never tell Tarmon or Erik.

Hooves sounded over his left shoulder, and he turned to see Drunir galloping towards him, white-and-grey-dappled coat glistening in the light of the burning buildings.

“I thought I told you to run?” Dann snatched five arrows from the quiver without stopping, and Drunir charged onwards.

Dann’s heart stopped for a moment as a massive Urak with pale brown skin and a black spear in its hand came hurtling from the thick of the fighting and launched itself at the horse.

Drunir reared onto his hind legs and smashed a front hoof clean into the Urak’s face. The beast dropped backwards like a stone, a gaping wound of shattered bone and blood where the horse’s hoof had caved in its cheek.

As two more of the creatures charged towards Drunir, Dann howled, “Forward!”

He drove four of the arrows into the ground before him, then nocked the fifth, drawing and loosing in a fluid motion. He caught an Urak in the eye. The creature howled and stumbled backwards, only for Drunir to kick out with his back feet. Thehorse kicked the Urak with such power that the beast was lifted from its feet, and once it hit the ground, it didn’t get back up.

Emboldened, the five men charged past Dann, axes, pitchforks, and spears raised. He snatched a second arrow from the ground and loosed it into the second Urak’s throat. The men fell upon the beast, hacking and stabbing until it went limp.

As Dann leaned down to retrieve his third arrow, the thundering of hooves rose over the din of the battle. Lyrei, Erik, and Vaeril rode at the head of the cavalry as the horses and Angan flooded into the village and tore through the Uraks.

Vaeril leapt from the back of a white stag with all the grace of a kat, hit the ground, and rolled. He lifted his hands, and the earth cracked around him, spikes of solid rock rising and streaking through the air, finding a home in the chest of a Bloodmarked. The elf pulled that shimmering silver sword from its scabbard and drove it deep into the Bloodmarked’s gut, smoke pluming from the runes in the creature’s chest.

Lyrei planted an arrow in the Bloodmarked’s skull before three more skewered its neck, and the light of its runes died.

Erik led the rest of the cavalry through the centre. He swung his blade through an Urak’s face, opening the creature’s jaw from left to right, then drove the steel down through the eye of a second, dragging it free in a spray of blood.

Dann nocked his third arrow and loosed it into the temple of the Urak closest to Erik.

But even as the missile plunged into the beast’s skull, the second Bloodmarked ripped apart two villagers and slammed its shoulder into Erik’s horse. The horse screamed as it flopped on its side, unable to keep upright.

Erik leapt from his mount’s back before it hit the ground. He crashed down into the dirt, rolling and pulling himself to his feet.

Dann charged, snatching up and nocking his fourth arrow as he went. An Urak lunged at him from the right, taking a woman’s head from her shoulders with a sweep of its black steel sword without breaking stride.

Dann twisted and drew back his bowstring, only for an arrow to lodge itself in the centre of the Urak’s skull. He turned to see Lyrei nod at him from atop a white stag.

The Bloodmarked sent a shockwave of fire and earth through the street, everything in its path bursting into blazing flames, the ground cracking. Four of Dann’s scouts were caught in the fire, their screams echoing.

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